alt Hacker NewsI see things like 2 sentence menu summaries in Uber Eats that are completely off in tone.
A quick sample from my app right now:
“Authentic Caribbean Flavours. Jerk Chicken, Curry Goat, and more. A vibrant culinary journey awaits.” - local Caribbean place
“Customisable burgers with 250,000+ toppings. Hand-cut fries and rich milkshakes await.” - Five Guys
“Authentic Indian cuisine bursting with rich flavours. Perfect for late-night cravings” - local Indian
Everything is Authentic, or Rich, or whatever.
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They’re investing in the wrong bits of AI. I’m sure they’re AB testing these soulless often inaccurate blurbs but I just cannot see how investing money into them actually sells more product.
On the other hand, if they had a coherent product vision, and trusted their engineers to use AI how they see fit, then I’m sure they would be more successful, and it would be cheaper.
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The article seems to suggest the unexpected spend was primarily on coding tools, like Claude Code.
One would hope Uber could manage 1 sentence API summaries (regardless of their quality) for less than $3.4 billion.
You misunderstand. AI cannot fail. It can only _be_ failed. In this case, it was failed by the restaurant industry's lack of actual diversity. _They_ need to do better, not AI.
I've never cared about those menu summaries! I always look at menu items and their descriptions. They are fine, at least to me.
> if they had a coherent product vision, and trusted their engineers to use AI how they see fit, then I’m sure they would be more successful
Out of curiosity, what do you think might be a successful application for AI in Uber's business? It seems like this is the sort of thing AI applications end up being. Does it actually get better than this?
The only accurate summary is "shit and overpriced"
Aside from the hilarious "250,000+ toppings" error, these summaries seem... fine? I would be unsurprised to learn that a human came up with them, even. Seems like pretty common/standard marketing copy.